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Although he was already standing too close he edged an inch closer and reached his hand toward mine. “Ah, your passion is…invigorating!It makes you glow.”
I snorted and made to step back, but his fingertips had come to rest on my hand. It was the lightest of touches, but it released an icy current that swept through my body. Frozen to the spot, my gaze locked on Anton Volkov’s blue eyes. They were really a beautiful hue—the color of glacial ice.
“Don’t be afraid. I wouldn’t dream of injuring a doorkeeper. I do want to help you with Miss Ballard’s predicament. I could give you the name of the two witches…and I’m sure that someday you would return the favor.”
I moved my lips and found that I could talk, although the sound that came out of my numb lips was as faint as ice settling in a water glass. “Return the favor? How?”
“We needn’t decide right now.” He inhaled deeply, his long patrician nose practically quivering as if I were a glass of very expensive wine. “I wouldn’t ask anything that would go against your…desires.”
I swallowed with difficulty, my throat constricting. Was he asking me to let him drink my blood? “What if this favor…is something I don’t want to do?”
“If you truly don’t want to give what I ask, I won’t insist. I trust you.”
“Why? You’ve only just met me.”
“You’re a doorkeeper. Doorkeepers are always honorable.”
I thought about that for a second. It was true I’d never cheated—on an exam or on a man, unless you considered having sex with an incubus cheating, which I didn’t because I hadn’t realized he was real at the time. And it was also true that I had been “lusting in my heart” after Liam Doyle while nearly engaged to Paul. Liam—where was he anyway? Why hadn’t he come to rescue me from this vampire? I turned my eyes—they were all I could move—toward the window and found him still talking to a tall woman, who, I saw now, was Fiona Eldritch. He was completely focused on her. That’s why he hadn’t come to rescue me.
“You promise that if it’s something I don’t want to do you won’t…force me.”
“I would never force a lady.”
“You won’tglamourme?” I asked, recalling the phrase from a recent vampire book I’d read.
He laughed. “Idolove that expression! But no, I promise, as a gentleman, noglamouring. That wouldn’t be sporting.”
I remembered that Liz Book had said that he was a gentleman. On the face of it, it seemed like a win-win situation. I got the information I needed to help Nicky and I didn’t have to do anything that I didn’tdesire. What could go wrong?
“Okay, it’s a deal. I would shake on it, but you seem to have put some immobility spell on me. I can’t move.”
I was released so suddenly I stumbled into Anton’s arms. He grasped my hand in his hand and squeezed, bowing his head to whisper in my ear two names: Hiram Scudder and Abigail Fisk. Then he was gone, vanished in a frigid gust that fanned my face. I looked around to see if anyone had noticed his precipitous exit, but no one was even looking in my direction. Liam and Fiona were no longer standing by the window—or anywhere else in the room.
I didn’t feel much in a party mood anymore. I made for the door, dodging past cheerful colleagues bent on wishing me a happy holiday and a good winter break. In the lobby I ran straight into Diana Hart, who was standing awkwardly in front of the coatroom, hugging her arms around her thin frame. She started to say something to me, but I cut her off.
“Merry Christmas to you, too, Diana, and a Happy New Year, too.”
I put my hand on the coatroom door and she shrieked, “Don’t go in there! It’s…locked.”
The door did appear to be locked. But, hell, I’d just opened the door to Faerie. What was a coatroom door in comparison? I turned the handle and pressed my shoulder to the door, muttering,“Ianuam sprengja!”
It opened so suddenly that I fell into the dimly lit room, straight onto a pile of fur…which moved.
I leapt back, remembering the fierce clawed creature I’d glimpsed on my front porch. The fur billowed and leapt…thenfell harmlessly to the side. Beneath it lay Fiona and Liam, clothes askew and limbs entangled.
I opened my mouth, but found I had nothing to say. Liam’s eyes, full of guilt, met mine, but before he could say anything I grabbed my coat and fled.
I was halfway across the quad before I realized I’d forgotten my boots. I could feel the snow soaking though the thin soles of my delicate party shoes, but I’d rather have ruined all the shoes in my closet than gone back to Briggs to face Liam Doyle.
Not that I had any right to be angry at him, I reminded myself. I had no claim on him. Ihada boyfriend—one who was winging his way across the country right now, possibly with a diamond ring in his pocket. I wasn’t angry with Liam, I told myself as I reached the path to the southeast gate, I was angry with myself.
The path was less well shoveled than the ones on the quad—and darker because of the trees overshadowing it. There should have been a security light at the bottom by the gate, but either the timers hadn’t been adjusted to the early twilight yet or it was broken. At least the gate was still open. I could see my street beyond it and even the faint glow of my own porch light. I hurried toward it, wanting nothing more than to be in my own house to nurse my wounds in private. “What an idiot!” I muttered as I strode down the hill. Not only had I let myself develop a schoolgirl crush on Liam Doyle, I’d made a rather vague deal with a vampire! And all for two names that I could have gotten eventually from Dean Book.
A noise behind me cut short my thoughts. It was the same noise I’d heard coming out of Bates Hall: the sound of wings. Could it be Anton Volkov, changed into a bat, come to collect on our deal? I sprang for the gates. Could iron stop a vampire? Or was it fairies who didn’t like iron? Whatever…I was running, spurred on by the beat of wings at my back, trying to remember the spell for averting an attack from above. Was itVox Faca naddel nem?OrVa fadir nox nim?“Oh hell,” I shouted within a yard from the gate,“faca vadum negg!”
Immediately the ground beneath me lurched and I fell into a pothole that hadn’t been there a moment before. My knees and hands slammed onto the broken icy pavement. Something heavy and feathery struck my head. I crouched and tried to cover my face. Claws dug into my skin…then a hand grasped mine. I looked up and found Liam Doyle crouched beside me. The bird—a giant black crow even bigger than the shape I’d seen outside of Bates Hall—beat at his face once and then soared out through the gate, cawing harshly as it disappeared.
“Callie, are you all right?” Liam’s hands were all over me, looking for wounds. There was only one cut on my hand. He tore the sleeve of his shirt—he wasn’t wearing a coat—and wrapped it around my hand
